Freezer Fun

So my big plan for today was to cook up a HUGE pot of soup. I thought this was a good way to use up some veggies that were about to expire. Not to mention, I had some miscellaneous can vegetables that weren't enough to feed us. My goal was to cook enough soup to make us 3 batches. Since Aunt Judy had the girls today (thanks Aunt Judy), the boys did some school work in the kitchen. No sooner had the pot been turned off to cool, than the phone rang. It was Grandmother calling to say she had a freezer emergency. She came to the house and collected the boys and I. We got to her house and looked at the damage, the freezer had been off for a good 12 hours. It is hard to know where to start when you have a project that big. So since I had soup on the brain, everything that was thawing that looked like it would be good in soup, went in a big pot. When it was finished we had salvaged all the good stuff, mostly fruit Grandaddy had gathered and Grandmother had preserved. We had to throw out a good bit, and it was kind of sad, all that hard work, going out. But the soup was delicious and made enough for my Grandparents to have 4 more meals. And I know you are dying to know what we did with all that soup, we FROZE it. In the newly repaired freezer. Once I got home, fed the kids, bathed the kids, and got them in the bed, I put up my soup and had enough for us to have 4 meals. So I am feeling Freezer Frenzy Fun!! Say that 3 times fast!

HONEY

4 years ago we lived on campus at Southwesten Baptist Theological Seminary (SWBTS). Our neighbors, Johnny & Sylvia Gonzales, were so sweet. I was happy to instantly meet a fellow stay-at-home Mom, a woman who pursued God, and who saw homemaking as wonderful gift. Sylvia was also well known for her bread. Now I must tell you that as much as we LOVED that bread, I am sad to say that I would tease her about all her healthy living. But over time, Sylvia broke through my uneducated mind, and helped me see the good in taking care of our bodies.

Fast forward to today. I now try to make as much of our bread as possible. And God has really been talking with me about eating better. I try to make good choices at the store, but with our finances the way they are, I sometimes just buy food to get us by. No matter how many preservatives or hydrogenated oil is in the food. So this past week I re-committed to making better choices.

Now for the HONEY. My parents are moving into their new house this week. They have already met their neighbors, and I am very happy with their neighbors. They live next door to GoldVine Farms. The honey farm!! My Parents were super sweet an brought me a box of honey. We are using it almost every day. For breakfast yesterday, I made fruit smoothies using organic yogurt, organic strawberries, bananas, hormone-free milk, flax seed, ice, and honey. The kids LOVED it. I am glad Mom and Dad invested in the honey, it will surely help us this fall and winter with allergies! I was thinking how interesting it is that honey never molds or mildews. Then my mind wandered over to the 'land of milk and honey' in the Bible. God promised the Israelites the land, and I never let my mind linger over the milk and honey. Try it!

And just now as I am writing this I am thinking about my parents new house, it is sitting right in the middle of land flowing with milk, honey, and eggs. My parents house literally sits between chicken houses, and the honey farm. And the cow pasture is across the street!


I am still learning all about our healthy eating. I plan on spending next Friday with Sylvia and letting her teach me some new stuff. Please pray that we will find places around us that sell the items we need to live healthy!

Thoughts

There are some days that i just feel like my mind is slap full and I don't have time to think. I know I really haven't let any of you into our home for a while. It seems that we have been busy. School is taking up a good portion of our day, and then there is housework, and then just the everyday stuff: church, volleyball, co-op, etc.

But I paused from working on other stuff today to read a friends blog. It is the blog of Dan & Casey Chappel. They lost their son Asher, after being preganant for 34 weeks. I do not personally know them. You see Casey's parents were our neighbors at SWBTS. She and I started chatting on facebook and became friends. Even though I have never met her, I just love her. She has the sweetest spirit and she is openly sharing her grief and sorrow with the world. This caused me to start thinking today about being more authentic with each other.

I think sometimes we fear being open and honest with each other for fear of the judging that will follow. But I believe that in being that honest with one another we can start to truly see each other's hearts. And then we have genuinely connected with one another.

That makes me think of a time when my cousin and I spent the whole summer riding in his car, listening to Broadway, and talking. It was during these times that I would start to share my hopes, dreams, fears, and perspective on spiritual truths. I look back on those days and I know that I was heard and understood. I can't even really remember most of what we talked about, I know a few things, but not the majority. Even if my cousin didn't agree with me, he had listened. and I had listened to him.

This lead me to think more about why my head feels so full sometimes. It is overwhelmed with stuff! But I enjoy listening to my own thoughts, my own heart, and the Lord's direction. And I realized today that in my lack of organizing I was allowing stuff to block my heart. And if my heart isn't open, how can I be authentic to anyone?

So I can't stay and chat today, I have to go organize my calendar.

David's Special Day

David was baptized this past Sunday. It was a very special day. Friends came from all over to share in this day with us. And of course, most of our family was there too. David was a little nervous, but he was so brave. We were very proud of him.

l-r Gwyn Richards Brandi, Gloria Richards, Jennifer Chandler, JP Benton
Esther Benton, Becky Benton, Brian Benton, Jan Scott, Barron Scott, Chris May.
After the service, the church was having a spaghetti lunch fund-raiser. So it was nice to have a good group to sit and chat with to finish off the day.

l-r Abigail May, Loreli Brandi, Julia May, Ava Chandler, David May, Seth Chandler, Caleb May
The Kids

Pastor Billy and Mrs. Donna enjoying lunch.

Julia gets SPEECHLESS!

Aunt Becky sent a bag of goodies home with Chris from his volleyball game last night. When I showed Julia what she got, she just held her mouth open. I kept pulling out monogrammed bloomers (4 pair Total) and she could not catch her breath. She has wanted her name on bloomers for a while. She was so speechless, I started laughing. I wish I had gotten the camera out. If I had known she was going to be so beside herself, I would have made a dozen pictures. It was truly priceless. So this morning, I showed them all the hair bows. And of course, Abigail got her some bloomers too. I just had to post these pictures of the girls. They were and are still happily in love with the goodies. I did have to tell Julia she couldn't wear her bloomers under her skirt because it has built in britches. Much to her disappointment. But Sunday looks to be a great day for wearing them!!

New Favorite Site

We have a new favorite website. http://www.bigfishgames.com/

It has great FREE game downloads!! check it out!

FIRST DAY OF SCHOOL

We had a great first day of school. We worked on hand writing, bible verse memorization, our lettering workbooks, math worksheets, discussed the presidential election, took a Presidential election test (David got an 80), worked on math-subtraction, Read from our Rod and Staff readers, Caleb drew some art with his new colored pencils (thanks again Grammy and Amy), And of course had our oral reading time of Robin Hood.

Here they are lined up for their first day of school.
This is right before they left "home".

Walking to the school room

At work on Math, lettering skills, and hand writing.

Our Map, Math drills, Bible verse (use for memorization and hand writing) and our Stars. We use the Super Star Helper to be the assistant.

Abigail in her new school shirt (thanks Mom) standing in front of the new buckets. Note the pictures on the buckets.

Auburn Football

It is that time of year again. FOOTBALL SEASON! We are huge Auburn fans! Since my parents were coming for a visit, we got really crazy about all our football decorations. My Dad loves to tease the kids about his team ...Alabama . We put out the Helgren's Auburn bunny. We are bunny sitting him while the Helgren Family serves as missionaries in Zambia. We hope that when they see him on our blog, they won't feel so homesick for America.

My wreath I made from remnant craft supplies.